Horror News Retro: John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN TV Debut

When I was young, the only way for me to see a horror film was by watching it on network television, edited, commercials and all. Although I didn’t see it until Halloween night in 1982, John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) debuted on NBC-TV on Friday, October 30, 1981, the same day that Rick Rosenthal’s Halloween II was released theatrically. I always loved watching the bumpers/advertisements on television for movies when they premiered, and Halloween had a creepy intro; the movie also had twelve additional minutes added to pad it out to the two-hour time slot and to tie in the relationship between Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis in a terrific performance) Michael Audrey Myers (William Shatner’s face mask in a terrifying performance).